Five minutes after leaving the motel behind, she reached the crest of the crater. The last streetlight stood on the side of the road, not far from where she’d dumped her flagon harness. She was almost tempted to pick it up again, but sentiment at this point translated to blatant stupidity. Araminta gunned the throttle and zoomed off down the slope into the desert.

As soon as she was past the field of illumination thrown out from the streetlight, she switched the bike’s headlight off. Her image resolution routines produced a reasonable gray-green view of the long straight road ahead, enough to give her the confidence to keep going at the same speed. After all, there was nothing else traveling along it. She could see all the way to the horizon, where the intensifiers showed the stars burning brightly behind a wavering curtain of warm desert air.

It was a six-minute ride to the bottom of the crater wall. By the time she reached the desert floor, the bike’s tiny display panel told her she was doing close to a hundred kilometers an hour. It felt more like five hundred. The wind was a constant blast in her face, and her clothes felt like they were being pulled out behind her. She bared her teeth into the airstream, actually starting to enjoy the experience.

Did Ranto and his friends come out here in the evenings and race along the empty road? She knew if she and her friends had had these kind of machines when she was growing up on the farm, she would have had a whole lot more fun.

And I can have them. In the Void.

She grimaced. Actually, no, I can’t. Stop thinking like this. It’s weak, and anyway, the Void won’t allow technology.

Not that she really counted this bike as technology. The battery under the saddle actually hummed as the axle motors drew power. Something in the left rear wheel clicked as it spun around (which should be impossible with frictionless bearings). And the tires made a low growling sound as they charged along the gritty concrete. Maybe it’ll actually work on the Silfen paths.

There were no landmarks out on the desert road, nothing distinctive on the side of the road. She wasn’t sure where the side track was. Not that it had been much of a track, just a couple of tire ruts across the hard ground. Even with the headlights she wasn’t going to see those in the night. Instead she reached for it with her mind, nervous that spreading her thoughts in such a fashion might allow Living Dream to find her once again. But the difference between the gaiafield and the Silfen community was clear enough to her, allowing her to avoid the former studiously.

The Silfen path felt her as much as she felt it. And somewhere up ahead and to the side of the road it opened fully like a flower whose time had come to bloom. Araminta slowed the bike and gingerly turned off the road. The uneven desert was littered with small stones. Their impact kept shunting her front tire off the track, leaving her to wrestle the handlebars back. It was difficult, taking her full strength. Her arms were soon aching from the constant struggle. Sweat built up on her shoulders and forehead.

That was when she heard the hypersonic booms rolling in through the clear desert air, thunderous cracks that hurt her eardrums. Her head swung around, searching anxiously. Behind her, the top of the crater containing Miledeep Water glowed with the haze of the town’s street lighting, creating a mellow nimbus that caressed the dark night sky. She saw bright glimmers of purple light streaking across the foreign constellations, curving down toward the lonely town. There must have been six or seven of them.

“Oh, crap,” she grunted, and gunned the throttle hard. “Here we go again.” The bike started to buck about as it jolted its way over the coarse ground. Dry bushes snapped as she rode right over them, spiky twigs snaring in the hub spokes to thrash around and around, their tips whipping her boots. Holding a straight line was a huge effort with the bike fighting every motion.

A couple more booms announced the arrival of more capsules at high velocity. Any second now Araminta expected the sky to light with laserfire in a repeat of Bodant Park. The bike was bouncing wildly; she could actually hear the axle drives whining. She fought to keep it straight as the front wheel shook from side to side. There was nothing for it but to slow down, though by now she could feel the start of the path lapping toward her like the advancing waves of an incoming tide.

The bike’s power fell off, then surged, ebbed again-Little amber lights winked on across the handlebars. She had no idea what they meant. She throttled back, and the outlandish machine freewheeled on forward. They were on a shallow incline now, leading down to an ancient winding streambed, so all she did was steer, keeping away from the larger stones and boulders.

By the time she jerked down onto the softer sand of the streambed, there was no power left and the bike rolled to an easy halt. Nothing worked. The screen was blank, the amber lights had gone out, and no matter how she squeezed the throttle, the axle motors didn’t engage.

Araminta sat there on the saddle for a long minute, letting the cramps and tension ease out of her shoulders and arms. Her bum was sore from the saddle, which plainly needed a lot more padding. Nonetheless, she grinned fondly at the bike.

I made it. The stupid thing got me out.

There was no doubt about it; she wasn’t on Chobamba anymore.

She climbed off slowly and pressed her fists into the small of her back, groaning as her spine creaked. The skin on her face was raw from the wind’s buffeting. It didn’t matter. She felt ridiculously pleased with herself for eluding her pursuers yet again, which was stupid, she knew. It had been due mainly to luck, though she had to give herself some credit. She’d responded to the situation well enough after she got the warning.

And what that woman did proves there are still people trying to help me, and not just her; there was Oscar back at Bodnant Park, too. A development that gave her a lot of hope. One thing she did know: Her decision meant that her time of running was over. There were no easy options ahead now, no waiting for someone else to do something. It’s down to me now. There was a lot of trepidation accompanying that thought, and maybe a tinge of fear, too, but there was also a degree of satisfaction. All I have to do now is find the people opposed to the Pilgrimage and take a stand with them.

With that she pulled the backpack out of the pannier, settled it on her shoulders, and set off along the streambed. That at least she didn’t have to think about; it was the right way.

In less than an hour her boots were starting to sink into the sand, which was becoming damp. Grass was growing on the banks. It was still night, and her enriched vision couldn’t make out much, but the desert had ended, she was sure of that. Then she caught sight of trees on the edge of her vision.

Water started to fill the imprints her boots left in the mushy ground. The streambed wasn’t sand anymore; it was fine soil. The stones on the banks were coated in moss and lichens. She scrambled up out of the gully and began to walk alongside it. Cooler air made her shiver, and she reset the thermal fibers woven into her fleece to keep more of her body warmth in. Not much farther on a thin trickle of water was running along the middle of the streambed. Far overhead huge dense star clusters filled the sky, imperial patches of silver-white scintillations so much more impressive than anything visible from anywhere in the Greater Commonwealth. Araminta smiled at that.

The water in the streambed grew deeper and wider as she walked on, turning from a rivulet to a broad current gurgling merrily around half-submerged rocks. Trees closed in, throwing tall branches up into the night, curtaining the starfield. Another stream merged into the one she was following. That was when she heard the first strands of song. The Silfen were somewhere close by; she could feel them as much as hear them. Simple harmonies slipping across the sylvan land, as much a part of it as the air. She halted and listened, drawing the melody down as she might sample a particularly pleasant perfume. It was enchanting, rising and flowing in its own rhythm and far higher than most human throats could reach.